


Debt

by loosecannon



Series: Something and Nothing [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 07:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17914562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosecannon/pseuds/loosecannon
Summary: After Sirius dies, Remus speaks with Dumbledore.





	Debt

Dumbledore’s office was full of broken glass and detached wires. Harry, Remus assumed. He would have been first on the short list of mourners invited, one by one, for a half-hour of Albus Dumbledore’s time. Remus assumed that he was scheduled before Mundungus Fletcher and after Harry. He suppressed a perverse laugh.

 

“I can’t believe somebody’s actually done it,” he said, gesturing at the wreckage.

 

“Would you have, when you were young?”

 

“No. I was in your debt.” Remus paused. “I suppose I was an old child.” He scrubbed at his eyes. “Still am, it would seem.”

 

Dumbledore leaned forward, painfully compassionate, and said, “It’s okay to cry, here.” The mean, thin creature that was Remus translated: I am a homosexual. You are a homosexual. You may thus act the weeping widow.

 

“Thank you,” he said with more bile than intended, “as always, for your permission.”

 

“Lupin--”

 

Remus turned around, bile in his throat. “What do you want me to say?” Dumbledore was silent, eyes full of a grief to which he had no right. “That I forgive you?”

 

“I was wrong about Sirius.”

 

“No,” Remus’s fingernails bit into his palms. “No, you were right about him. You were right about everything. It is better to be loved than feared, isn’t it, Albus?” He gestured broadly. “All that _shit_ you told us about the power of love, you were right. Make people love you, make them grateful to you for treating them like a human being, and they’ll do anything for you. We’re all in your debt, all your soldiers. We are _all so fucking_ _grateful_. _”_

 

Dumbledore was silent.

 

“But Sirius wasn’t grateful. You saved him, and he didn’t think he owed you anything. After all those years,” Remus’s voice broke. “All those years treated like an animal, becoming an animal, and he still wasn’t grateful. Still the entitled little shit you knew before the war. Still disposable.”

 

Dumbledore sighed. He looked over the rims of his glasses, meeting Remus’s gaze and not letting go. “You’ve always been perceptive,” he said finally. "Name me one army built and led with transparency and impeccable moral standard. Trust me, I have looked. I have studied. And the inevitable conclusion--the one you already know--is that war is brutal and cruel and does not care for the bodies or souls of individuals. But people need to believe differently. If they don't, they won't fight. And, in this war, if they don't fight, thousands will die. This is a war that we cannot lose."

 

"So, what, the ends justify the means now?"

"The ends will never justify the means. No person should ever be treated as less than an end in himself. But if I make the wrong choices, if I become too attached and lose this war, I will be responsible for even more deaths." Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles. "You are right in what you must think of me. Good people do not lie and manipulate and sacrifice lives for an end. There are no good commanders. We all go to hell, if you believe in hell. I've made my peace with that."  

 

"You have. I haven't."

 

"I'm not asking you to, Remus. All I ask is that you don't dissolve this army."

 

"How--?" Dumbledore looked at Remus, at the shattered instruments littering his office. "I can't tell Harry."

 

"Harry Potter is a symbol of hope. Don't let him lose that hope."

 

And then Remus understood. He was sick with understanding. “Sirius wasn’t just disposable, then. He was a threat. Harry loved him more than you.”

 

“This is war. We are all disposable.”

 

“Even you?”

 

“I think you’ll find me disposed of quite soon.”

 

Remus left, drained of mercy and of wrath.


End file.
